


This is Not a Frog

by yumberry



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous player, First Meetings, Other, and im so sorry but seb sees exactly 0 (zero) frogs in this fic, how did i avoid ever being in a situation where the farmer would give their name? idk, sometimes falling for someone starts with literally tripping over them and thats valid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:27:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29304960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yumberry/pseuds/yumberry
Summary: Sebastian takes a lot of late night walks and he's used to seeing some strange things. Shadow creatures, bioluminescent frogs, spirits, Lewis sneaking off into bushes... but he isn't used to tripping over a person passed out in front of his house.And of course it's the new farmer he's been so successfully avoiding.
Relationships: Sebastian/Player (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	This is Not a Frog

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abyss1826](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyss1826/gifts).



> Hello! I haven't written a fic.. scratch that, I haven't written *anything* in so gosh darn long, I feel like a nail that's been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for a century. 
> 
> But Stardew Valley recently updated and my friend passed out in front of the carpentry shop two nights in a row. We started thinking, wouldn't it be nice if Sebastian would let you in to crash on his couch so you don't lose your 2 topaz and 31 coffees just because you thought "just one more level of the mines. just one more"
> 
> Like, if there's going to be consequences to my actions, they should at LEAST be fun ones. This IS video ga(y)mes after all.

Cutting through the music came the buzz of his phone. Sebastian’s shoulders dropped in relief and he turned off the alarm without looking. It was his 2 AM “get up and stretch” reminder. After months of neck pain, he’d finally gone to Harvey about it, and the doctor had suggested he break up his work with intermittent stretching. So far, it was working. It gave his mind a break, too, and he usually came back to his computer feeling just a bit sharper.

Sebastian turned his music off and pushed his chair back from the desk. He stood up, unfurling from his hunchback position. As he stretched his arms above his head, he closed his eyes and noticed for the first time the sound of rain pattering against the window.

A late night autumn storm. Perfect frog weather.

Grabbing his hoodie from the back of his chair, Sebastian put his phone and keys in his pocket and silently, with practiced steps, slipped upstairs. While everyone else in the family had largely given up trying to “fix” his sleep schedule, they certainly didn’t appreciate him making much noise at night. Especially his mom, who was perhaps the lightest sleeper Sebastian had ever known. It was a miracle she slept through Demetrius’s snoring.

Sebastian unlocked the front door and stepped out into the night. The air was damp and earthy and felt refreshing on his face. Ugh, he must’ve been squinting at the screen again without realizing it. Maybe Maru was right and he did need gla—

His foot caught on something heavy yet soft, and then he was falling. His hands flew out in front of him, hitting muddy ground at the same time his knees slammed into hard-packed canvas. Balance completely thrown, his weight fell completely on his hands, and then he was face first in the mud with his feet sticking up in the air.

Spitting the mud out of his mouth, Sebastian pulled his feet under him and pushed himself up on to his heels. As his eyes adjusted to the low light coming through the windows, he made out the shape of a human, face down in the mud next to him. They had a huge overstuffed backpack, dirty overalls, and a large rain hat that had been knocked askew.

Of course Sebastian would trip over the new farmer he’d been trying to avoid. And he’d been so successful at it, too. Barely three conversations after two and a half seasons.

Sebastian placed his hand on the farmer’s shoulder and shook. “Hey, you okay?” he said.

No response.

Okay, they _were_ still face down in a bunch of mud, and Sebastian was pretty sure he’d heard that a person could drown in a one inch puddle. Probably should’ve remembered that earlier. He tried to roll the farmer onto their back, but their bag was in the way. They ended up just slumped on their side, awkwardly pulling on the straps with their weight. At least now Sebastian could very easily see that they were still breathing, even with an absolutely mud covered face.

Wasn’t Abigail into some, like, mud masks? Something about it being good for the skin?

Why was he thinking about this.

He tapped the farmer’s face. “Farmer person. Whatever your name is. Wake up.”

The farmer let out a shaky groan.

Nope, fuck this, _Maru_ was the one who worked at the clinic, not Sebastian. _He_ didn’t take care of people. He didn’t drag idiots down to the clinic because they couldn’t take care of themselves. _He_ …

He was going to drag this stupid farmer down to Harvey. He couldn’t just leave them here, as much as a small part of his brain wanted to.

From trying to roll the farmer over, Sebastian knew that that backpack was far too heavy for him to carry all the way down the mountain. The farmer must put Alex to shame with the biceps on those arms if they were hauling this all around the valley. But that also meant that even if Sebastian ditched the backpack, the farmer themself would still be too heavy to carry. How in Yoba’s name was he supposed to get this farmer into town?

Maybe he could use the wheeled dolly his mom used for delivering large furniture? That seemed like his best bet.

After double checking that the farmer was still breathing, Sebastian stood up and walked over to the garage. Near the front was the wheeled dolly, stood up with breaks pressed against the wheels. It didn’t look comfortable to lie on at all. Possibly evendangerous to a passenger’s fingers, should they dangle a little too far off.

Well, Sebastian had no other ideas of what to do. Hopefully the farmer’s ridiculous backpack would give them a bit of padding.

He wheeled the dolly through the mud back to the unconscious farmer. They were still deeply unconscious, so Sebastian started maneuvering their arms out of the backpack straps. Freed from it, they slumped back down on the side of their face with a grunt.

“How are you sleeping through all of this?” Sebastian muttered as he lifted (with his knees, please and thank you; his mother had drilled that into him) the backpack on to the dolly. Yoba, it felt like it was full of rocks. Which it probably was.

Next was the farmer. Sebastian stepped over the farmer and reached down to grab them under the arms. “Sorry ‘bout this,” he said. With a huff, he pulled the farmer up just enough to slide them on to the dolly before dropping them.

They leaned against the backpack, head lulling back to rest on top of it, pulling their mouth open until they snored. Sebastian carefully tucked their hands over their chest so they wouldn’t fall into the way of the wheels.

With one last look, still hoping the farmer might wake up, Sebastian sighed and began the hike down to the clinic.

* * *

It was a long and slippery path down the mountain in the rain, which seemed to be getting heavier by the second. Sebastian could hardly see five feet in front of him, and his hoodie and legs were completely soaked. As was the farmer. Harvey’s dimly lit blue hospital sign was like a lighthouse over the nearly flooded town square. Sebastian half-wadded over to it, ignoring the squelch of his socks in his water-logged boots.

Normally Sebastian liked rain. Rain drowned out other noise. Rain brought out the frogs and worms and other weird creatures that normally hid from the world. But this? This sucked.

He knocked on the door. Then remembered Harvey was probably asleep upstairs and couldn’t hear that. Trying not to shiver, Sebastian pressed the doorbell three times, holding it long enough to turn into an annoying drone on the last one. With the heat from physical exertion fading, he was getting damn _cold_. Finally, he saw a light flick on above him. The muffled patter of footsteps followed, and then a bleary-eyed Harvey, wrapped in a bathrobe, was opening the door.

“Sebastian? Is something wrong?” he said.

Sebastian stepped back to reveal the sight of the farmer zonked out on a furniture dolly. “Found them passed out on the mountain,” he explained.

Harvey’s eyes widened, only to quickly be replaced with a serious, thinking expression. “Oh dear. Bring them in,” he said, stepping aside and opening the door wide. Sebastian wheeled the dolly and passenger into the bright clinic.

“Wait here, I’ll go get a gurney,” Harvey said. His eyes lighted on the growing puddle at Sebastian’s feet. “And a couple of towels.”

Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. “Sorry.”

Harvey disappeared into the clinic. Sebastian let out a heavy sigh, feeling his shoulders drop. The cold had embedded itself on his bones and he suddenly felt so, so tired. He usually didn’t go to bed for a few more hours, but he also usually didn’t haul a whole fucking person and a bag of rocks half a mile down a mountain.

The door was pushed open as Harvey walked backwards, pulling along a gurney with a stack of towels on top of it. He pulled it up alongside the dolly and then handed some of the towels to Sebastian, who took them gratefully. While Harvey laid out the other towels across the gurney, Sebastian peeled off his soaking hoodie and wrapped a towel around his shoulders.

“Help me get them up here, please,” Harvey said, gesturing to the farmer.

Sebastian nodded. He tossed his hoodie on to one of the waiting room chairs and then reached down to grab the farmer under the arms again. Harvey took hold of their legs.

“Ready?” he said. “Okay, and… _liiiiift_!”

The two of them pulled the farmer up off the dolly. With a shared nod, they stepped sideways to either end of the gurney and lowered the farmer back down.

Harvey wiped his hands on his bathrobe. “Thanks. Why don’t you sit down and rest while I take them back? I can bring you some tea in a moment.”

“Sounds good,” Sebastian replied. Harvey smiled at him and took the farmer back.

Sebastian didn’t like tea much, but something warm to drink sounded excellent right now. He sat down on the chair next to his hoodie and began trying to wring the water out of his hair without getting it on the towel. Didn’t want to accidentally stain it black with dye. His mom had already given him too much grief over several “ruined” towels already, and he didn’t want to hear it from the local doctor, too.

These chairs were incredibly uncomfortable. Cold metal with sad padding that had been flattened after years of supporting patients’ butts. Sebastian slouched forwards, folding his arms over his knees and then resting his head on top of them.

A few moments later, Sebastian heard the door creak again, and he lifted his head. Harvey walked out, this time holding two hand-made mugs with steam slowly rising from them. Stepping around the dolly still in the middle of the room, he handed the purple mug over to Sebastian.

“Decaf for you, un-caffeinated for me,” he said. “I know you’re a night owl but I hope to be going back to bed.”

“Thanks,” Sebastian said. Just holding the warm mug felt nice against his frozen fingers. He took a sip. It tasted like a grassy, watered down coffee. He kept his face as neutral as possible.

“Least I can do after you went out of your way to help someone,” Harvey replied. “They should be okay, thanks to you.”

“Has this happened before?” Sebastian asked, remembering how quickly Harvey got over his shock at the sight of the farmer.

“Unfortunately, yes. They… tend to push themselves too hard fairly often. Last week Emily found them out cold by the saloon. Luckily for her it wasn’t quite as much of a trip to get me.” Harvey rubbed his face as if trying to keep himself awake. “Speaking of trips, I’m not so sure you should make the one back up the mountain right now. The storm is pretty bad out there, though I think the worst of it has passed.”

They both turned around and looked out the window. Thunder rolled somewhere far off in the direction of the ocean. Wind shifted and threw a wall of rain at them, clattering against the window. Sebastian had to agree with the doctor there; he did _not_ want to go out in that.

Something on his face must’ve displayed his thoughts, because Harvey patted him on the shoulder. “Make yourself at home, okay?”

With that, he stood up and left again. Probably to go check on the apparently accident-prone farmer. Sebastian cradled the warm mug close to his chest and turned in his chair to keep an eye on the outside. Lightning flickered in the clouds.

 _Five seconds. Ten seconds_. 12 seconds later came the thunder. It did seem to be getting further away. Over the next ten minutes, Sebastian slowly sipped at the tea and counted the growing time between flashes of lightning and their accompanying thunder.

Then, from the back came a commotion. It started with the sound of someone yelping and then hitting the ground.

“Whoa, careful!” exclaimed Harvey. “Slow down, you just woke up.”

A new voice said something in response, too quiet for Sebastian to make out the words. Well, guess the farmer was finally awake.

“My bag!” they suddenly yelled. Footsteps came running down the hall and then the door was being thrown open. Still covered in mud but slightly drier, the farmer ran out into the waiting room, looking around and huffing with exhaustion. Their eyes slid right over Sebastian and landed on their backpack, still on the dolly. “Oh thank Yoba,” they breathed in relief. They collapsed against the bag, closing their eyes like they would fall back asleep right there.

Harvey stepped out a second later, looking a bit frustrated. “Didn’t I _just_ say to take it slow?”

The farmer blinked their eyes open sleepily. “Sorry, doc. I just have a lot of, uh, what’s the word? Iron. Lots of iron in here. Didn’t want to lose it all and have to spend another day in the cold levels of the mines.”

“Yes, who’s to say that next time someone like Sebastian or Emily will be there to save you? You won’t always be so lucky,” Harvey said.

“Sebastian?” The farmer looked up and finally processed the fact that someone else was there with them. Their sleepy brown eyes widened a fraction. Then they smiled, uninhibited and friendly. “Oh, hi! So, you’re the one who brought me here?” They stood up and extended a hand towards Sebastian with almost too much force. Like they were playing at being awake and alert. “Thank you so much. Last I remember is being in the mountains. That’s a long way to carry someone.”

“No problem,” Sebastian replied, steadfastly keeping his hands around the warm mug.

The farmer drew back their hand. “If you say so,” they said. The note of brightness had left their voice and for a moment Sebastian felt a little bad. But then the farmer turned back to Harvey and said, “Well, I feel fine and dandy now, thanks to both of you. What do I owe you, doc?”

That was clearly a lie, because they were wavering on their feet. Harvey opened his mouth as if to argue, but then just sighed. “Five hundred gold, and a promise that you’ll try to avoid this happening again.”

The farmer nodded serenely as they pulled a coin purse out of their overalls. “I can certainly promise to _try_.”

Harvey put the money in his bathrobe pocket. His eyes flickered out the window and then to Sebastian. “And Sebastian, walk them home, please.”

Sebastian stared at him. “What?”

The farmer gasped with indignation. “Hey, I don’t need an escort.”

“I know that trying to keep you here any longer is a fool’s errand, but you still have just barely recovered from falling unconscious due to exertion. I’m not letting you walk all the way back to the farm alone,” Harvey said. There was a serious glint in his eye, like he was two inches from pulling his medical diploma down from the wall and shoving it in their faces. The farmer crossed their arms with a huff, looking somewhat mollified.

Sebastian stood up and placed the towel and half-empty mug on the counter.He didn’t care to argue with the good doctor, and the farm wasn’t too far. “Fine. Let’s get going,” he said, slipping back on his hoodie.

“Thank you,” Harvey said. “You can pick up the dolly on your way back or in the morning.”

“Ugh, _fiiiine_ ,” the farmer said, voice overdramatic like a petulant child forced to do their homework. They picked up their backpack and slung it on their shoulders with significantly less effort than Sebastian expected from someone who couldn’t even stand up straight. “Off we go then, my dear escort.”

Sebastian opened the door and the farmer marched outside. He waved goodbye to Harvey and then closed the door behind him. The farmer was waiting a few feet away, face tilted up into the rain.

“You know that escort is a euphemism, right?” he said, walking past them.

The farmer fell into step behind him and their face darkened with a blush, barely noticeable in the dark. “Yeah, I’m sure you would _love_ it if that’s how I meant it, Mister Tall, Dark and Handsome.”

Sebastian laughed. “You got me. I’ve been dreaming of going home with a self-endangering farmer after they pass out on my doormat.”

“Oh, you live with Robin?” the farmer asked. “Wait. I knew that. Robin and Maru have both talked about you.”

“Maru talks about me?” Sebastian said.

“Of course. You two are siblings.”

“Half-siblings,” he corrected.

“Oh. Right.”

They walked in silence for a moment, surrounded by the steady sound of rain. They passed the broken-down bus on their right.

“So, uh,” the farmer said. “How long have you lived here?”

“My whole life,” he answered.

“Have you ever seen that bus working?”

Sebastian blinked at them in confusion. Why were they asking about the bus? “No, it’s been broken as long as I can remember. Pelican Town is pretty much a dead end.”

“A dead end? I’d say it’s more like a life… a living end,” the farmer said. “That didn’t make any sense but you get the idea.”

“A living end,” he repeated dryly.

“Things just, poof, grow so fast here!” the farmer explained. “Back in the city, I killed, like, every plant I tried to grow. But here? It’s like the valley is desperate to have things growing. The turn of the seasons shows no mercy, but otherwise I can’t kill the dang plants even if I try.”

“You’re from the city? And you left it for this place?” Sebastian asked incredulously.

The farmer’s face twisted into a bit of a frown. “The city is… it’s a lot. All of the time. Out here it’s calm, and I get to work with my hands, at my own pace. It’s nice.”

“Hm. Calm. That’s one way to describe this town, I guess.”

They had reached the farm now. The cabin looked significantly better than it had the last time Sebastian had seen it, years ago when Abigail had dragged him to go exploring with her. A soft, flickering glow came from the windows, illuminating the stone pathway and the first few rows of crops. Corn, it looked like.

The farmer climbed up the front steps to the small deck. With a hand on the door handle, they turned back to Sebastian and smiled. “Thanks for walking me back. And for bringing me to the clinic. I owe you.”

Sebastian shrugged. He didn’t know how to handle gratitude. “Needed a break from work anyways,” he said.

The farmer giggled. It was almost, sort of, maybe cute. “In that case, you’re welcome for the distraction.” A beat of silence passed. “Well, uh, goodnight.”

“Wait,” Sebastian said. The farmer paused, door opened just a crack. “Next time you’re out too late,” he said, “you can knock on the basement window and I’ll let you in, okay?”

Their mouth parted into a slight O. “Oh, I, I wouldn’t want to—“

“I’d rather have you crash on the couch and have to explain that to my family than drag you to Harvey all over again.”

The surprise turned into a soft smile. “Okay then. Thanks.”

Sebastian nodded stiffly. He was feeling more awkward by the second.

“Goodnight,” the farmer said.

“Night,” he returned.

With that, the farmer disappeared into their little house, leaving Sebastian alone in the light rain. He quickly turned heal and began the walk back to the clinic. He was exhausted, wet and cold and covered in mud. He still had to push that dolly all the way back up the mountain and then, in the morning, explain to his mom exactly why it was so filthy. He still had some coding to finish back on his computer.

But all he could think about was the farmer’s little smile lit up softly in the night. Directed at him.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if they're called dollys but I know even less what else to call them. These heckers: https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200605576_200605576
> 
> Also, solid disclaimer, I'm super aromantic so I don't know how romance do???? Please accept anyways.


End file.
